Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Letter to the House of Representatives on Threats to Asylum Seeker Protections from PC(USA) Stated Clerk Rev. Gradye Parsons

Both of these troubling pieces of legislation are being marked-up Wednesday, March 4 in the Judiciary committee: The Protection of Children
Act introduced by Representative John Carter (R-TX-31) and The Asylum Reform
and Border Protection Act introduced by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT 3) and
Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA 6). Members of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition have written letters opposing these damaging pieces of legislation. In short, the Protection of Children Act would roll back important protections under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act for unaccompanied minors who seek refuge at our border. The Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act would restrict access to asylum and humanitarian parole for several vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied minors, as well as augment the use of immigrant detention. This is the letter sent on behalf of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

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March 2, 2015

Dear
Members of the House of Representatives,

I write
to you today on behalf of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) to express concern about the Protection of Children Act and the Asylum
Reform and Border Protection Act.

Just
as Christ welcomed the children[1],
so strives the church. Presbyterian congregations across the United States
gathered together to support the needs of unaccompanied children arriving from
Central America in the summer of 2014. Their stories and their faces are forever
etched on our hearts and in our minds. The notion that our government could
have kept any one of these children in detention longer or required them to
participate in a hearing so ordered as to guarantee their return to danger, as
these proposed bills would allow, is contrary to our belief in the special
place children hold in our faith communities.

The authors and signors of the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) recognized the value and vulnerability
of children when they added the provisions protecting unaccompanied minors in
2008. That section of the TVPRA was passed by a bipartisan Congress and signed
into law by a Republican president.[2] The
process under the TVPRA was created out of a concern that a child traveling
alone from another country could be fleeing genocide, family violence, and/or have
become the victim of human trafficking. The protections of the TVPRA have been
used to save the lives of thousands of children from countries all over the
world since its passage. The tragic arrival of tens of thousands of children last
year does not make the need to protect children and ensure that their
humanitarian claims are heard any less important. We do not alter our values
and obligations to children and the world because it has become inconvenient.

Proponents
of diminishing the protections to unaccompanied children in the TVPRA blame the
TVPRA for the arrival of thousands of unaccompanied children at our southern
border last year. This logic is flawed and altering the TVPRA will not keep
children from making dangerous journeys to the U.S. The majority of child
arrivals last year were from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. They were
fleeing country conditions, not arriving to take advantage of permissive laws.
Proof of that lies in the fact that countries neighboring Honduras, Guatemala,
and El Salvador saw a similar increase (712 percent) in the amount of children
applying for asylum as well.[3]

The TVPRA’s guarantee of a speedy placement with Health
and Human Services and in the least restrictive setting considering the best
interest of the child is not a “loophole.” Children who arrive alone from
noncontiguous countries have traveled a great distance and are likely to have
been traumatized and exploited on their journey. Taking them out of the hands
of an immigration enforcement agency and placing them in the care of a social
service agency is common sense. This guarantee allows children the time and
space to tell their story and have access to counsel. These are not lavish or
meaningless guarantees. They are basic due process guarantees that take into
consideration the nature and vulnerability of a child far away from home and
placed in immigration removal proceedings.

The Protection
of Children Act and the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act would take away
these basic due process protections by requiring that children remain in the
custody of Homeland Security for thirty days and be subjected to a removal
hearing with an immigration judge within fourteen days. These acts further
eviscerate due process by eliminating the review process that takes into
account a child’s ability to make an independent decision about her or his case
and forbids the use of government funds for attorneys for unaccompanied
children in removal proceedings. Children, far away from home and likely
subjected to trauma, will be forced to tell their story to immigration
enforcement officers and participate in hearings without counsel a mere fourteen
days after arrival in the United States. The passage of either of these bills
guarantees that children with real claims for protection by this country will
instead be returned to the violence and exploitation they journeyed so far to
escape.

United
States immigration law does not require adults who appear at our border with
humanitarian claims to prepare a hearing within fourteen days. We do not have a
mandate to hold them in custody while they await their hearing. Why, then, would
we require children, who have been traumatized, who may not understand English
or be able to read in any language, to be held to a more onerous process?
Children deserve special consideration and protection—not less consideration
and protection. The authors and signors of the TVPRA in 2008 understood this. A
vote for lessening the protections of the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Protection
Act would be a vote for refoulement of the most vulnerable group of persons
seeking protection that our country encounters—unaccompanied children.

We ask
that you oppose the Protection of Children Act and the Asylum Reform and Border
Protection Act and any other bill that is proposed that would lessen the
protections of the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Protection Act.

In
Christ,

The
Reverend Gradye Parsons

Stated
Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

About Me

The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness is the public policy information and advocacy office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Its task is to advocate, and help the church to advocate, the social witness perspectives and policies of the Presbyterian General Assembly. The church has a long history of applying these biblically and theologically-based insights to issues that affect the public — maintaining a public policy ministry in the nation's capital since 1946.
Reformed theology teaches that because a sovereign God is at work in all the world, the church and Christian citizens should be concerned about public policy. In addition, Presbyterian forefather John Calvin wrote, "Civil magistry is a calling not only holy and legitimate, but by far the most sacred and honorable in human life."